Joshua

Well, this delivery is a bit of a saga...

Friday:
12pm: VBS finishes
1:20: Isaac is picked up by Dad to spend the weekend up north.
1:35: I start having contractions. What great timing!
10:30: we go to the hospital because contractions are frequent, but neither of us think we'll be staying. I don't think they're painful enough and we both think I'm too happy.

Saturday:
1:30am: We leave the hospital. I'm having contractions, but they were farther apart than I thought. We might have been able to stay, but that idea was unattractive. The nurse thinks we'll be back later that day.
7:30: I wake up after having an excellent sleep; contractions start.
7:30pm: after continuing all day, contractions finally get close enough that we could go in again. Ben takes a shower first.
7:45: contractions stall out.
8:30: contractions completely go away. I guess it's nice that we're not at the hospital and I don't have to be embarrassed, but seriously?? They were happening all day.

Sunday:
6:00pm: contractions finally start again. It was a nice painless day...and it was nice not having to watch the clock. My contractions tend to not follow a nice pattern with respect to timing, and it always makes me frustrated.
8:30: I go for a walk around the lake after drinking some water. That was a mistake. Water has been going through me in about five minutes this whole weekend. Contractions are coming fast.
9:00: I sit down and contractions pretty much stop. I had actually been wondering if these were Braxton-Hicks as they were acting a bit differently.

Monday:
12:45am: I wake up with a contraction and the need to go to the bathroom. Which one woke me up?
1:30: the contraction. I get out of bed to try and not distub Ben so he can get some sleep. I do disturb Flurry.




4:45: I wake up Ben...we're going to the hospital! I expect to stay.
4:50: on our way to the hospital I only have one contraction...oh no, they're going to send me home. How embarrassing.
5:30: we get to stay! The contractions picked up enough to fool the nurses and I'm dilated to a stretchy four. We settle in.
7:00 shift change - we now have the nurse that helped deliver Isaac. I'm dilated to a five and the doctor breaks my water.
9:30: I'm dilated to a six and the contractions are slow (5-7 minutes apart) and painful. But phew, since my water was broken they can't send me home. It is one of my larger fears for some reason.
10:00: we decide to go forward with an epidural and petocin
11:00: I'm really starting to hurt and have been wondering where that epidural is. It finally show up, along with a friendly doctor.
11:15: ahh. We also have a nurse change and she start the petocin on the lowest setting. I'm dilated to a six.
11:30: I'm really glad that I have an epidural; some contractions are still mildly painful.
12:15: an alarm goes off on the petocin dispenser and a nurse comes in.
12:30: the baby's heartbeat goes out of the safe zone. The nurse tries a few things and then has me lie on my side. That helps, but she also checks on the baby's progress...baby is on his way! I'm fully dilated and at station +2 (I.e., the baby has started moving down the birth canal.
12:40: Ben goes to quickly grab some lunch while the doctor is called.
12:45: the doctor shows up faster than expected and gets everything ready.
12:48: Ben returns with lunch, surprised to see everything ready to go
12:53: I push through the last part of a contraction
12:58: I push through the first part of a second contraction...yeah, they're still rather far apart
1:02: I stop pushing so the doctor can cut the umbilical cord around baby's neck.
1:05: Joshua Alan is born!



Due to the speed and the umbilical cord, his breathing was a bit raspy...the fluid wasn't all out of his lungs. Nothing to be worried about, but the nurse monitored it and said that only Ben and I should hold him to keep the stress down. So we limited our visitors for the day, although an hour later he was doing fine. So we just had a nice, low-key evening.

Saturday: babies and puppies

Throughout the pregnancy I've had a problem where I'm super hungry and need to eat something and that means that Isaac wants to eat too.  Except that he doesn't need to eat because it's an hour after breakfast or something like that.  So I started saying that the food is for the baby, and he doesn't need any.  I stuck to that excuse, and he eventually learned that it meant he would get no food.

Of course, he thinks he has a puppy in his tummy.  So he's started to tell me that he needs to eat some goldfish crackers "for the puppy."

Friday: VBS

Well, I made it through the whole week of VBS.  Today's craft wasn't much of a craft, but did require a bit of set up time.

I also found one picture of Isaac from the week's pictures.  He's in the background, riding the tricycle.  Although I'm not sure his feet are on the pedals, so I have wondered how well it worked.  He seemed to love VBS...especially the slides and singing.  It was a very nice change of pace.

Thursday: play sand

Isaac received some moon sand (or something similar) last week at Jamie's wedding.  It has been his favorite toy since.  He loves to play in the sand, and this is something that he can do inside without a lot of prep, so I like it too.

Wednesday: babies, fish, eyebrows

I had my weekly doctor's appointment today.  She pretty much said that not much had changed since last Friday, but she did strip the membranes.  That helped with Isaac, so I'm hoping my body will react the same way this time too.  (Contractions started about 36 hours after with Isaac, so we'll know tomorrow night.)

Isaac also got some goldfish today.  He was so excited.  And it helped me go to the grocery store as we were out of the basics and I really didn't want to go.  I also got him some goldfish crackers so he could eat goldfish while watching goldfish.

Then later this evening Ben asked Isaac if he could wiggle his eyebrows.  Isaac proceeded to move his whole head up and down...which did wiggle his eyebrows.

Tuesday: watering can

Isaac and I went to the pool this afternoon and he proceeded to sit on the side of the pool and played with a toy watering can for thirty minutes.  He also enjoyed swimming in the deep part and seeing his friend.

Monday: VBS

I'm volunteering this year again at Vacation Bible School.  I always tell the coordinators they can put me where ever, and this year I ended up as a craft helper.  (They knew I was pregnant and needed to be somewhere that I wasn't too critical.)

The time went a lot faster than I was expecting.  We pre-folded some boxes which ended up being a smart move - the craft took the whole time even with the boxes folded.  And the kindergartners and first graders wouldn't have been able to do it...once I had folded five it was easy, but if you only have one to fold it would be hard.  There were three groups of kids...it was interesting to see how much a year or two in age changed what they were able to do.  And in between the kids we had clean up and re-setting up and figuring out how to make it work better.  One change we made was increasing the space between the tables.  I was trying to help some kids during the first session and just felt like my belly kept getting in the way.

Isaac was in nursery during this time and I think they ran him hard...we both took very good naps.